The Good Earth (Oprah's Book Club) [Paperback]

I first read "The Good Earth" when I was a teenager. I vividly remember the feelings of profound sadness as I turned the pages, reading about O-Lan's interminable sufferings. She was sold from slavery into an arranged marriage, did back-breaking labour on her husband's farm, lived through drought and famine and the loss of her children. Even after O-Lan's husband achieved wealth and success, he turned to drinking, gambling and womanizing. The question is: how did O-Lan actually perceive her life? Did her stoicism originate from resignation to fate (acquired from growing up as a family slave)? Or did O-Lan have true grit, an undomitable will to survive and endless hope that the future can only be better?

I believe Pearl S. Buck was mostly accurate in her portrayal of life in China in the early 20th century. What she described in her books matched the stories told to me by my grandmother, who had spent part of her childhood in China prior to WWII.

There is no happy ending to this story for O-Lan, but make no mistake - she is the true heroine in this novel.

THE GOOD EARTH, Pearl Buck, Washington Sq. Press, 1931, pp357

This novel should be read before SONS which is a continuation of The Good Earth. Pearl lived in China a great deal of her life and what she writes in her novels reveals much about Chinese life in the early 1900's. This novel is about Wang Lung, a very poor farmer who ekes out a living from his meagre land which barely sustains him and his father. He is about to be married.
His life is arduous and totally dependent on what he produces from the land. He represents the utterly poor of China and through Pearl's first-hand knowledge, we get glimpses of how gruesome life must have been. The story centres around Wang and his children as they grow up and the father's hopes for each. He recognizes and values that it is the land which sustains them, and he continues to buy any available. Unfortunately, as he gains in wealth, he and the children lose sight of the source of this wealth and the further removed from the land they become, the more serious the consequences: 'Land is one's flesh and blood.' (p. 52)
Even if one loves the land however, one is subject to the whims of nature and man's interference. So we experience such hardships as backbreaking work and hours, storms, floods, drought, grasshoppers and wars. The good years and harvests are rewarding but the hardships mean life and death. Pearl doesn't invent these hardships ' millions of Chinese starved to death and millions more died due to robbers, lords of war and rebellions. She alludes to most of these.
Wang's first love is the land but as they age, the children distract him away. We get glimpses of the rich man's life, his servants, his way of life and his abundant choice foods. In opposition, we are constantly reminded that the majority in China are destitute just barely surviving while these greedy selfish men refuse to share. His children, his eventual yielding to the flesh and his pride lead to his downfall. He is never to find the peace he so desires in old age until: 'But still one thing remained to him and it was his love for his land. He had gone away from it....But his roots were in his land and although he forgot it many months....still he must needs go and he went.' (p. 353)
The Good Earth is a real life human tragedy and it is not a book one puts down easily as it unfolds. His devotion to his children, his kindness to his wife whom he did not love and replaced with another, his disappointments with their lives and especially that not one will carry on his legacy with the land, his daughter the Fool, all these events could occur in any household and the outcomes could be the same depending if we chose the path Wang did.
The detail Pearl provides about the impoverished and the wealthy Chinese could only be grasped by one with such intimate first- hand knowledge. Typically, she also includes a handicapped child based again on her own daughter's life.
This is a classic and in many secondary schools, it is required reading. The insights into the Chinese way of life are abundant and the human experiences are lessons for anyone in any place and time.

This 1932 Pulitzer Prize winning novel is still a standout today. Deceptive in its simplicity, it is a story built around a flawed human being and a teetering socio-economic system, as well as one that is layered with profound themes. The cadence of the author's writing is also of note, as it rhythmically lends itself to the telling of the story, giving it a very distinct voice. No doubt the author's writing style was influenced by her own immersion in Chinese culture, as she grew up and lived in China, the daughter of missionaries.

This is the story of the cyclical nature of life, of the passions and desires that motivate a human being, of good and evil, and of the desire to survive and thrive against great odds. It begins with the story of an illiterate, poor, peasant farmer, Wang Lung, who ventures from the rural countryside and goes to town to the great house of Hwang to obtain a bride from those among the rank of slave. There, he is given the slave O-lan as his bride.

This is a potent story, brimming with irony, yet simply told against a framework of mounting social change. It is a story that stands as a parable in many ways and is one that certainly should be read. The actual writing, page by page, is of great note here. The author's genius lies in the simplicity of her story-telling, her careful (and deceptively "simple") choice of language, which never strains. Quite remarkable. I certainly recommend this book! Along with The Losers Club: Complete Restored Edition by Richard Perez, a quirky, highly entertaining novel I picked up off Amazon, this is best novel I've read so far this year. Don't miss this wonderful reading experience!